Nick Clegg’s warning over terror risk of Syria fighters

Security threat: Nick Clegg says the risk of British fighters going to Syria cannot be underestimated

Nick Clegg today issued a warning to London and other British cities over the threat of a terror atrocity by young men returning radicalised and “filled with hate” from the Syrian civil war.

The Deputy Prime Minister told the country not to “underestimate the gravity of this” as Scotland Yard appealed to women, particularly in Muslim communities, to raise the alarm over sons, husbands and other loved ones if they have travelled to Syria and potentially been lured into terrorism.

Mr Clegg told LBC radio: “The security threat to us as a country, on British streets, British towns, British cities, British communities, of people going to Syria and coming back radicalised with violent intentions is now one of the biggest security problems we face as a country.

“It is something that the Prime Minister, myself and other senior members of the Government are very focused on.”

The Metropolitan Police says 40 Syria-related arrests were made in the first three months of this year, up from 25 in the whole of last year. Police are advising those who want to support humanitarian efforts in Syria to donate to charities instead of going there.

The latest warning came as the father of a British teenager killed in Syria said he was “scared” for his other two sons and urged them to leave the country.

Abdullah Deghayes, 18, from Brighton, is believed to have died in Kassab, in Latakia province, earlier this month after leaving the UK in January. His father Abubaker, who learned of his son’s death via Facebook, said his sons Jaffar, 16, and 20-year-old Amer had also travelled to Syria.

Abdullah, who was due to go to university in Brighton, is the nephew of Omar Deghayes, who was held by the US as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

In the interview Mr Clegg, an atheist, also backed the disestablishment of the Church of England. This could mean the Queen being stripped of her title as Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England.

The Liberal Democrat leader said: “My personal view is in the long run, having the State and the Church basically bound up with each other, as we do in this country, it’s actually better for the Church and better for people of faith and better for Anglicans if the Church and State were over time to stand on their own two separate feet.”

Mr Clegg also offered hope to cancer sufferers that a new £90,000 drug may be offered to patients on the NHS, either through cutting costs by negotiating with pharmaceutical giant Roche or by paying for it under the Government’s Cancer Fund.